


In All Chaos There is Calculation

by inoubliable



Category: National Treasure (2004), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, M/M, Plot twist: Stiles is not Riley, Slow Build, The werewolf thing just kind of isn't mentioned???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1207474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoubliable/pseuds/inoubliable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Derek Hale steals the Declaration of Independence, and falls in love with Stiles Stilinski. In that order.</p><p>--</p><p>So, there’s invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Derek really needs to stop being surprised when he’s right.</p><p>It’s still not a map. It’s a series of numbers. Another clue.</p><p>And maybe that’s all there is. Clue after clue after clue, all leading up to nothing.</p><p>But there’s a sudden enthusiasm in Stiles’ voice, the kind of uncontrollable excitement that’s contagious, and Derek just doesn’t care if every story from his childhood is a bunch of bullshit because Stiles is <i>happy</i> and Derek kind of is too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In All Chaos There is Calculation

**Author's Note:**

> If you're asking yourself "Why?" don't be alarmed because I'm asking myself the same thing.
> 
> Title from 'Glory and Gore' by Lorde.

Sometimes, Derek forgets things.

He’s forgotten what the house used to smell like. The songs his sister used to sing in the shower. The color of the kitchen after his mother repainted it for the fourth time.

But the stories. Derek remembers the stories.

His mother used to sit at the edge of his bed at night, long after he was too old for fairytales. She’d push his hair off his face and whisper to him in a voice full of wonder, tell him fantastical tales of Founding Fathers and Free Masons and buried treasure, on and on until his father came to the door, said “That’s enough, Talia, let him sleep.”

But of course, he wouldn’t sleep, not right away. He’d lie there, staring at the ceiling, imagining it for hours. He’d dream of men who looked like him, passing secrets down to their children, secrets of clues and maps and treasures, the secrets his mother had passed on to him.

Of course, it was just a fantasy. His father worried, sometimes, thought maybe he was too invested in the tales, but really, he just liked the soft excitement on his mother’s face, the note of enthusiasm in her voice. Sometimes, his grandfather would visit and he’d tell the stories, too, except he’d use a dollar bill to demonstrate and if Derek was good, his grandfather would let him keep it.

A dollar wasn’t buried treasure, but it kind of felt that way to Derek. He kept a whole stack of them hidden underneath his bed, way back in the corner where not even Laura would look.

They burned up in the fire. Everything else did, too.

Everything but the stories.

\--

Laura would say he’s obsessed, but then again, Laura isn’t around to say much of anything anymore.

He can almost see her, though, shaking her head at him. His lips quirk. Beside him in the passenger seat, his occasional girlfriend turned colleague Kate shares his smile. She leans in close to the windshield, so close her breath fogs the glass. Says, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Personally, Derek doesn’t think so. The Arctic Circle is a wasteland of snow and ice, and it’s white for miles. But he sees the beauty in the potential, and so he nods.

“I’ve never seen this much snow before,” Scott chimes in from the backseat, a note of wild wonder in his voice, the kind that can only be achieved by a California kid in the Arctic.

Derek glances at him in the rearview. His mouth is hanging open and his face is practically pressed to the glass of the window, his nose just brushing it. Kate had taken one look at the twenty year old kid when they’d first met and sneered, had said “Would your parents be willing to sign a consent form?” Scott had laughed it off in that good-natured way of his, but Derek’s starting to wonder if maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.

The computer in Scott’s lap beeps once, the way it has every half-hour since they started. Then it beeps again, and then again, in lazy succession. “We getting close?” Derek asks.

Scott looks down and taps something on the screen, squints at it like he actually understands the intersecting lines and flashing dots. Derek privately doubts he does, but the kid nods after a moment, flashing him an enthusiastic smile in the mirror. “If your theory is right, it should be around here somewhere.”

He doesn’t sound disbelieving, but Derek’s hands tighten on the wheel anyway. He’s dealt with enough doubt to last a lifetime. He tries to remember why they need a navigator in the first place. He’s pretty sure a GPS could do the same job, and it might spare Derek the tension headache.

“It’s right,” he says through gritted teeth, and stares stubbornly out of the windshield, as if there’s anything out there but thousands of miles of white.

Kate laughs. She starts to say something, probably something that will do Derek’s mood no favors, but she’s interrupted by a shrill, single chime from the computer. It’s accompanied by Scott’s crow of “Stop! This is it!”

The vehicle slides on the ice when he jams on the brake, and Derek slides too when he jumps out before they’re fully stopped. Kate’s right behind him, though she at least has the foresight to grab a metal detector. It doesn’t ping on anything right away, but that’s alright, because Derek did it. Derek came thousands of miles from home to an arctic wasteland in the middle of nowhere, and he’s about to make the discovery of a lifetime. The discovery of several lifetimes. The discovery his family has passed down stories about for generations.

He thinks that maybe, somewhere, his mother is proud.

\--

So, the discovery of a lifetime turns into another riddle. Story of his life.

Still, it’s kind of exciting. There’s a ship wrecked beneath the ice, just like his mother’s stories said there would be. It’s packed full with snow and bodies and gunpowder, and _he's_ the one that found it. It blows to high heaven when all that powder gets lit up, but that’s okay, because he _did it_.

What’s not so okay is that sweet little Kate Argent turns out to be the bad guy. Again, story of his life. “I’m sorry, Derek,” she’d said in that sorry-not-sorry voice with a gun in her hand. Derek will have to do some deep soul-searching later on about why all his relationships seem to end this way. Granted, he’s only had one other girlfriend, and she’d never pointed a gun at him, but still. The point stands.

Kate had also said something about ‘borrowing’ the Declaration of Independence, but Derek would have to worry about that later too.

Right after he got the college kid to stop cursing him through a mouthful of gunpowder.

\--

Derek has never been to DC, but it’s everything his mother’s stories made him think it would be.

Scott tells him he’s been, once, on a school field trip back in high school ( _so, what, last year?_ Derek thinks) and that he’s even seen the Declaration in person, hung up in the National Archives right in the heart of the city.

“It’d be impossible, you know,” Scott keeps saying. “She can’t do it. Nobody could do it. It’s _impossible_.”

Derek knows that. But he also knows Kate.

Nothing is impossible when it comes to an Argent.

\--

The FBI doesn’t believe them. Of course they don’t. 

“They think we’re crazy,” Scott informs him rather unhelpfully, as if Derek doesn’t _know_ how it sounds. “No one’s going to help us. Not unless they’re crazy, too.”

“We don’t need crazy,” Derek says. “We need a step down from crazy.”

Scott nods sagely. “So, obsessed.”

Derek tries not to think about how that’s exactly something Laura would say. “No. Passionate.”

\--

The National Archives are both impressive and intimidating. Derek feels underdressed. His scuffed shoes echo in the lobby. Scott coughs, once, and it’s loud like a gunshot.

The receptionist takes his name with a smile, assures him someone will speak to him soon when he says it’s urgent.

It’s still forty-five minutes before she clacks over to a door in her two-inch heels, holding it open for him. “Dr. Stilinski will see you now, Mr. Hale,” she says. He tries not to look as out of place as he feels. It’s hard with a shaggy-haired twenty year old at his elbow and a wrinkled shirt untucked around his waist, but he does his best.

Which promptly feels like it might be enough when he sees the man behind the desk, black-framed glasses perched on his nose and a white button-down rolled up to the elbows. Even in finely pressed dress clothes and enclosed in a spacious, clean office, the man looks mussed, his desk a clutter of files and trinkets, one framed photo on the very edge, in very real danger of toppling off. In the middle of the chaos is a nameplate. _Stiles Stilinski_ , it reads in gold-embossed font. Derek has a moment to think about what a strange name that is before the man looks up and pins him in place with the widest, most welcoming smile he’s ever seen.

“Hello there,” he says, clicking his pen and tucking it behind his ear, knocking his glasses slightly askew. He takes them off as he stands, crossing around the desk to offer them his hand. Up close and without the glasses to hide behind, he looks young. As young as Scott, even, though it’s impossible. His hand is soft and his grip is firm and Derek doesn’t know why he’s so caught off guard.

They exchange introductions and Stiles returns to his desk. Derek casts his eyes around, trying to equate this clean, kempt office with the cluttered desk and mild man. His gaze catches on the mantle. Without thinking, he walks to it, inspecting the case of old, worn buttons on display.

“George Washington’s campaign buttons,” Stiles informs him, sounding rather pleased with himself.

“You’re missing the 1789 Inaugural,” he says automatically, turning back to the desk just in time to catch Stiles’ surprised expression melt into… something else. He looks at Derek the way Derek probably looked at those buttons, like he’s something interesting, something worth special attention.

Scott glances back and forth between them. “So,” he says, somewhat uneasily. “About that urgent matter.”

“Right.” Derek crosses back and drops into the seat in front of Stiles’ chaotic desk. A shutter falls over Stiles’ face immediately and he straightens, fingers laced and expression blank. Derek sees a true professional for the first time.

In retrospect, perhaps there should have been more buildup to “Someone is going to steal the Declaration of Independence,” but no one has ever accused Derek of being good with words.

Stiles, to his credit, doesn’t blink.

“Have you spoken to the FBI about this?” If Derek didn’t know how crazy of a concept it was, he would have thought Stiles believed him.

“We have.” He shifts, uncomfortable.

“They said that no one can steal the Declaration,” Scott supplies.

“They’re right,” Stiles says, but he leans back in his chair, a considering look on his face. “Why would someone steal the Declaration of Independence?”

Derek doesn’t have the time or the patience to explain an invisible map inscribed on the back of potentially the most famous document in the nation, and Scott doesn’t know the half of it. When they’re both silent, Stiles leans in again, a flicker of something like disappointment crossing his face. He holds his hand out over the desk. “It was good to meet you gentlemen,” he says, giving them both another firm handshake. “I appreciate the tip.”

“You should have just told him,” Scott hisses, outside of the office. “Why didn’t you?”

Derek doesn’t want to admit that he didn’t want to seem foolish, mostly because it’s the first time in his life he’s ever cared. He ignores Scott, thinking instead of the time he and his grandfather found a 1789 Inaugural George Washington campaign button.

\--

Derek is running out of options, and he’s painfully aware that every second he stands still, Kate is racing forward.

The Archives have become sort of a sanctuary. He’ll stand and stare at the Declaration of Independence for hours, feeling secure in the knowledge that it’s _there_ , that she hasn’t beaten him yet.

But she will, if he doesn’t _do_ something.

He’s standing over the Declaration with Scott at his side when he says, “I’m going to steal it. I’m going to steal it so she can’t.” And with everything that Scott knows, he shouldn’t have to ask. But he does anyway.

“What?”

Derek leans over the case, careful not to touch the glass. He stares at the scrawling hand-written text, feels the intensity of the Archives all around him, and says it again.

“I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence.”

\--

Scott spends three days trying to convince him it can’t be done. He even does _book research_ , something Derek wouldn’t have thought he knew how to do. He finds blueprint and building layouts, a complete floor-to-floor, room-to-room description of the National Archives.

“And that’s just the building,” he says. “The Declaration itself is protected by bulletproof glass. It’s, like, three inches thick. Beneath that are heat monitors. You can set those off if you get too close with a fever, man.”

Scott isn’t finding much success in changing Derek’s mind, but he’s beginning to prove his worth. He hasn’t slept in a day and a half to come up with all of this. Derek appreciates the dedication.

“When it’s not on display, it’s in a vault,” Scott goes on, shoving a book under Derek’s nose like Derek doesn’t know all of this backwards and forwards. “Like, a concrete vault with steel doors and an electronic lock and fingerprint scanners. Probably eyeball scanners, like in the movies. This is serious shit, Derek. They’re not messing around here.”

The look on Scott’s face when Derek flips to the section about the Preservation Room is priceless. “When there is a disturbance to the document or the casing is in need of repairs, the document is transferred to the Preservation Room,” he reads aloud, and pushes the book back so Scott can read it for himself. “There’s a gala this weekend. I saw an announcement about it in Dr. Stilinski’s office. If we set off the sensors that morning, they’ll keep it there that night. Everyone will be focused on the party. It’d be the perfect time.”

He watches Scott struggle for an argument and allows himself a small smile when he can’t find one.

“Maybe this could work,” Scott says, unsure but hopeful.

“Maybe,” Derek agrees, and returns to the blueprints to figure out how.

\--

Despite planning the biggest heist of the century, Derek finds time to make a call home. Uncle Peter has never been the most reliable guy, and so Derek half-expects his instructions to go unfollowed, but sure enough, two days later, a package comes to the hotel addressed to him.

Scott is sure it’s something necessary to the mission, and so he doesn’t question it when it’s a small worn button, faded and old. Derek buys a simple crushed velvet ring box to store it in and wraps it carefully. It makes him sort of nostalgic. He remembers obsessing over the button like this only once before, with his grandfather.

 _For the man who has everything else_ , he writes on a scrap of paper. His handwriting isn’t neat and the edges are ragged where he tore it out of a notebook, but somehow he doesn’t think Stiles will mind. _Thanks for listening_.

\--

Scott sets off the heat sensors with a small handheld laserlight the morning of the gala, and Derek doesn’t know how no one sees it, but they don’t. There are no sirens, no SWAT teams, nothing to indicate that anyone has any idea of what they’re about to do.

Like clockwork, the document is sent to the Preservation Room.

For the first time, Derek thinks maybe his plan might work.

\--

Derek gets past security with a halfway-decent janitorial uniform and the grace of God on his side (for once). He’d stored a change of clothes in the Archive bathroom that morning. The tuxedo is second-hand, but he figures it will work.

The gala is smotheringly formal. There are waiters and hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne. Derek takes two and wades through the crowd, feeling claustrophobic and already guilty.

Stiles Stilinski looks out of place in a suit and tie.

His smile upon seeing Derek fits right in, though.

“Mr. Hale,” he says. “Good to see you again.” And perhaps the flute of champagne Derek hands him isn’t his first, because he sways in close, smile like the sun.

Stiles thanks him for his gift. He gushes about how beautiful his collection looks, now that it’s complete, and his face is colored both from alcohol and excitement. He looks a little breathless. Derek’s chest is tight.

 _Get out of there, dude_ , Scott’s voice says in his ear, sounding tinny and concerned even through the low-quality earpiece.

Derek relieves Stiles of his now-empty glass and says his goodbyes, but his eyes linger even from across the room.

He spares a second to think that, if this doesn’t end with him in prison, he might just ask Stiles out sometime.

Of course, should Stiles ever find out he lifted his fingerprint from a champagne glass to steal a document of national importance, Derek doubts he’ll ever accept.

Somehow, the idea of being caught feels worse than ever.

\--

Turns out, he and Scott are not the only ones with a plan.

Kate used to be beautiful, he thinks, but she’s terrifying with rage etched across every inch of her face. Even more terrifying when he realizes she brought her gun along with her.

This is the second time his ex-girlfriend has tried to shoot at him. He’s starting to think maybe the relationship was doomed.

The one with Stiles is just getting interesting, though. Somehow, despite being less than a focal point in a gala full of the rich and famous, Stiles still manages to notice Derek as he hustles through the crowd, trying to escape before one of Kate’s cronies starts shooting up the place. And, because his luck is monumentally bad, Stiles follows him. This, of course, only manages to land him right in the thick of things. Derek suspects it’s a talent of his, finding himself right where he shouldn’t be. Derek knows the feeling well.

Derek has no other choice but to bring him along for the ride, not once Kate has caught up and her bullet misses them both by three inches at most. Stiles fights him out of instinct and scrambles to the far corner in the hollowed out back of Scott’s escape van once he’s dragged inside. His face is pale and his eyes are wide and he looks suddenly small. “Who are those people?” he demands, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why were they shooting at you?” He glances at the plastic tubing Derek has clutched in his hands. “What is _that_?”

Derek has never been particularly tactful, and Scott is too busy making sure they’ve escaped the Argents to save him. And so he says, “It’s the Declaration of Independence.”

Stiles takes it pretty well. He laughs.

And then he realizes Derek isn’t kidding, and all hell breaks loose.

\--

Stiles hits surprisingly hard.

“You deserved that,” he says mildly when Derek stares at him, cradling the side of his face. “You stole a national artifact. You pretty much kidnapped me.” His eyes soften, the slightest bit. “You could have gotten killed.”

Derek doesn’t know how to answer that.

“I think we lost them,” Scott calls into the silence. “So what’s next?”

Their hotel room is out. After the Kate ordeal, there’s no telling who saw his face or remembered his name. He could be wanted in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico at this point.

His hesitation probably does him no favors in Stiles’ mind (who robs the National Archives without a contingency plan?) but Stiles surprises him.

“My place,” he says, and climbs into the front seat to give Scott directions.

Derek is glad he’s hidden in the back because looking at Stiles so adoringly out in the open would probably be weird.

\--

Stiles’ home is a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor in a nice neighborhood. It’s lived in and comfortable, and there’s a whole bank of windows on one wall that Derek would bet frame the sunrise perfectly.

Derek’s heart seizes unexpectedly at the sight of a coat hung up by the door, much too large for Stiles, but before he can ask (not that he would), Stiles is explaining that it’s his father’s, that he sometimes comes over and leaves his things, almost like an excuse to come back. There’s such fondness in his voice that Derek’s entire body aches.

Derek doesn’t know why Stiles thinks he has to explain anything to them.

He especially doesn’t know why he likes knowing.

\--

Stiles looks like he wants to hit Derek again when he mentions pouring lemon juice onto the Declaration. “If we do this,” Stiles says, in the hard voice he probably uses on underlings in the Archives, “we do it my way.”

“Since when is he the captain of the ship?” Scott asks.

Derek doesn’t argue. Honestly, at this point, they’re lucky Stiles hasn’t run screaming.

So Stiles lovingly, painstakingly soaks a cotton ball in lemon juice and rubs it oh so carefully across the back of a two hundred year old piece of paper.

Nothing happens. For some reason, he looks just as disappointed as they do.

“Maybe it needs heat to work,” he says after a long moment of awful silence. “You know, like a reagent.”

Derek looks at him. Stiles looks back. In unison, they bend and blow a stream of warm air across the wet paper. For a second, there’s nothing. And then, as if responding more to Derek’s feverish hope instead of his breath, a small dark smudge begins to appear in the corner, spidering out slowly. Stiles gasps, drawing back, and Derek’s heat alone isn’t enough. The black begins to fade.

Scott is staring at the both of them, his jaw slack. “Did that just…?”

“We need more lemons,” Derek decides.

“We need more heat,” Stiles agrees.

\--

So, there’s invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Derek really needs to stop being surprised when he’s right.

It’s still not a map. It’s a series of numbers. Another clue.

And maybe that’s all there is. Clue after clue after clue, all leading up to nothing.

But there’s a sudden enthusiasm in Stiles’ voice, the kind of uncontrollable excitement that’s contagious, and Derek just doesn’t care if every story from his childhood is a bunch of bullshit because Stiles is _happy_ and Derek kind of is too.

Derek doesn’t care much for introspection, and so he doesn’t think about it too much.

After all, they’ve got another clue to find.

\--

DC becomes Philadelphia, and still Stiles stays.

“It’s not like I could go to work,” he explains, though Derek didn’t ask. “You guys kind of have my livelihood in the back of your creeper van.”

Derek wonders then, not for the first time, if Stiles is only here to make sure the Declaration is in good hands. And he is, of course he is. There is literally no other reason for him to be tagging along.

Except Stiles’ smile makes him want to doubt that, just a little bit.

\--

They’re in Independence Hall and Derek is so awestruck by the history of it all that he hands Stiles the Declaration without thinking. It’s something he’s been careful not to do thus far, because it would make too much sense for Stiles to be biding his time, waiting for Derek to get careless and trust him just enough for him to make an escape. He said it himself, they pretty much kidnapped him. Derek wouldn’t blame him for making a run for it.

Only, Stiles laughs when Derek grabs for it back, dancing out of his reach but not going farther. “Relax,” he says, shouldering the tube that’s encasing one of the most historically relevant documents in the nation. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Derek hates how much he wants that to be true.

\--

Kate finds them. Of course she does. There was never any other way this could go.

They could run. Getting lost in the crowd would be all too easy, but she’d only find them again. Besides, they all see the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

“Hello, Derek,” she purrs. Her fingernails graze his cheek when she pats his face. She always kept them dangerously sharp, but this is the first time he’s considered them lethal. “How good to see you again, darling.”

Scott makes a choked scoffing sound. Kate turns on him, smile as dangerous as her claws. “And you, Scott. You lasted longer than I thought you would. Congratulations.”

Derek can’t identify the emotion that wells in him when she flicks her gaze onto Stiles. It’s like rage, but more terrified. Like guilt and regret and the acrid taste of defeat.

“You’re new,” Kate says, reaching out. Derek doesn’t mean to step halfway in front of Stiles before she can touch him, but it happens. She blinks, slow, considering, and then throws her head back and _laughs_. “Oh, little Derek, always the hero.” She cocks her hip in a calculated way that shifts her coat and emphasizes the shape of the gun. “I’ve always wanted to break you of that.”

She can break him in any way she wants, as long as she leaves Stiles alone.

And maybe that silent promise is etched out on his face, because she touches him again, strokes a long finger along his tense jaw, and doesn’t look back at Stiles.

“You know what I want,” Kate whispers in that breathlessly impatient way he remembers from both sex and late-night fast food runs. Their life together feels like years ago. Was it really this same month that her breath was fogging the passenger side window in the Arctic?

“I do,” he finally admits. Stiles makes a noise of protest when Derek drops the Declaration tube off of his shoulder, but it’s better than him making a noise of pain and so Derek holds it out.

Kate’s smile is simultaneously familiar and so, so strange.

\--

Derek has no choice but to lead her to the treasure. Kate is a liar and a thief, but she doesn’t make idle threats. Someone will die if he doesn’t cooperate. Derek doesn’t want it to be Scott and he’s not ready to go just yet, but he’s scared to death it’ll be Stiles. Good, sweet, enthusiastic Stiles who’s only mistake was following Derek out of that party.

Derek wonders if Stiles would do it again, could they go back. Wonders if maybe he’d make the right choice and forget the day he ever met Derek Hale.

He hates himself for hoping Stiles wouldn’t.

\--

Trinity Church is a piece of history nestled in a city full of modern marvels. It’s dank and cold inside, and when he looks up, the ceiling seems to stretch up to God himself. Derek hasn’t prayed in a long time, but he thinks maybe it can’t hurt to ask for a little help.

Kate sits him down in a hard-backed pew, sets herself down in his lap and cradles his face in a way that has her nails whispering against his vulnerable throat. “Derek, sweetie.” Her voice is sweet but her eyes are dark. “I’m getting tired. You brought me from California to DC to Philadelphia and now, New York City. It’s beginning to feel like you’re leading me on.” Her thumb swipes his lip, sudden and hard, and he tastes blood. “It’s time to stop teasing.”

Derek can’t help himself. “What are you going to do, kill me?” The way her eyes flash tells him _yes_ , she just might. “You need me, Kate.”

Kate’s expression goes from bloodthirsty to angelic in the blink of an eye. “Of course I wouldn’t kill you, darling,” she says, dusting lint from the shoulders of his shirt. Her claws dig in, so fast and sudden he can’t stop his grunt, loud as an explosion in the empty, hollow church. A bead of blood rolls down his arm.

“It’s beneath the church,” Stiles says, fast and half-panicked. Kate looks at him.

“Derek always did go for the smart ones,” she laughs, retracting her nails. Derek feels the throb of his heartbeat in the wounds. It aches from how fast his heart is racing, because Kate is climbing off his lap and leaning over the back of the pew, right into Stiles’ personal space. He shrinks away, but there’s no escaping Kate Argent. “How about you be a good boy and show me the way?” It sounds like a suggestion but it’s laced with iron and arsenic.

Stiles stands, stupidly fearless even in the face of true danger. “Sure.” His lips are thin and his jaw is tight. Derek gives up trying not to find him horribly attractive. Stiles’ fingers brush almost accidentally across the tops of Derek’s shoulders as he passes, too light to be an actual touch. The wounds Kate dug into him feel suddenly less sore.

Maybe it’s because his heart feels so heavy.

\--

Stiles leads the way, though Derek insists he shouldn’t.

“It’ll never work out between you two,” Kate taunts. “One relationship can’t handle so many hero complexes.”

Derek wants to mention that they survived for awhile despite her overwhelming narcissism, but she has already poked him in the spine with the butt of her gun and he has no desire to be shot, not down here in the dusty cobwebbed entrails of a church.

It’s practically a maze. After several minutes, Derek is hopelessly lost. He doesn’t know if Stiles knows where he’s going, and he doesn’t know how to get back to where they started.

Not that it matters. Derek can think of a few ways this can go, and none of them end with him ever seeing the light of day again.

\-- 

Okay, so no one ever accused Derek of being an optimist. But come _on_. This isn’t a fairy tale. It isn’t even one of his mother’s bedtime stories. This is real life, and it should have ended badly.

But it _didn’t_.

Well, okay, yeah. Kate left them for dead in a tomb five stories below the ground after waving a gun around and threatening to shoot them all. There was no treasure. Scott stubbed his toe.

But they’re _alive_. And they have the Declaration.

“I can’t risk getting caught with it,” she’d explained regretfully. Her sigh had become a smile, nasty and mean. “And if I need it again, I’ll know exactly where to find it.”

They’re all quiet for a long time after Kate has disappeared, unsure of where to go from here. They could start back towards the surface, but there’s no guarantee they’ll ever make it. They took so many turns to get to this point that Derek wouldn’t even know where to begin. Kate left herself a trail, somehow, but he’s past ever trying to figure that woman and her ways out.

“So,” Scott says finally, his voice shaking only a little. It’s the first time he’s spoken in what feels like hours. “What now?”

“We keep going,” Stiles decides. And really, what else is there to do?

Stiles passes Derek to take the lead of their expedition again. Their hands brush as he passes. Derek thinks maybe it was an accident, and thinks he definitely doesn’t care. He grabs Stiles’ hand full-on, lacing their fingers and tugging him close.

When Stiles’ surprised expression tilts up at him, he completely gives up on holding back and kisses him full on the mouth.

Scott sounds like he might be choking, but Stiles moans at almost the same time, and Derek knows exactly which sound he cares about more.

\--

Turns out, the treasure is real.

Derek doesn’t mean that in some sappy, sentimental ‘I lost out on the treasure but got the guy’ sort of way.

There actually is treasure. 

It fills a room that stretches for at least a mile. Gold gleams from every corner. The stories did it no justice.

Scott breaks down into tears at the sight of it. Stiles is rendered speechless.

Derek doesn’t… he can’t…

He trails his fingers through the dust caked onto a nearby statue, a full-body cast of a man resembling King Tut.

Somewhere in the corner of his mind, he pictures Laura’s grin. Thinks maybe she’d say, “Not too bad, kid.” He doesn’t really remember what it felt like to hug her – she went through so many growth spurts it was hard to keep up with her body at any given time – but he thinks maybe he feels the warmth of it. He thinks of his grandfather and of his dollar bills and the wiry whiskers that tickled when they came too close. He stares out at the fulfillment of his childhood fantasies and suddenly every detail of his mother’s excited bedtime tales rush over him.

 _I did it, Mom_ , he thinks.

He swears he can almost feel her pride.

\--

Scott stuffs his pockets full of gold. Derek makes him put it back.

“It’s like a museum,” he says, voice respectfully hushed in the presence of such greatness. “Don’t touch the masterpieces.”

“Says the man with the Declaration of Independence strapped to his shoulder,” Scott gripes, but empties his pockets.

In the far corner of the room, there are stairs. Five stories of them, all the way up to the surface of the earth. At the top of them, Derek stops to take it all in. Stiles stands beside him, their hands entwined again.

No matter what happens, he thinks, there will never be another feeling quite like this.

\--

Ironically enough, the closer they come to fresh air, the more claustrophobic Derek feels. He knows what’s waiting for him at the end of the stairway. He knows this fairy tale ending is about to turn sour.

Somewhere near the top, Stiles squeezes his hand. “I’ll stay,” he whispers. “Whatever happens. I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s the second time he’s said it. Derek remembers what it felt like to hope so fervently that he meant it. Now, he believes it without a shadow of a doubt.

Derek kisses him for what might be the last time. It’s bitter, but Stiles tastes sweet. Derek might not remember what his childhood home smelled like besides charred wood and the stink of death, but he thinks he’ll always remember that taste.

\--

Stiles and Scott are ushered away by one of the many agents swarming the church when they break through the surface. Derek doesn’t mind. He thinks he might prefer to face this part alone.

He feels as if he’s aged twenty years in two days. The poster tube feels heavy on his shoulder, though the Declaration is as light as ever, just a thin delicate piece of paper that started this whole mess.

Despite everything, Derek still feels the awe of what he’s carrying as he shrugs off the tube and holds it in his hands. So much trouble, and for what? He’s going to prison. He’s going to rot away in some cell somewhere because he tried to be the hero for once.

And perhaps the worst part is that he _doesn’t regret it at all_.

“Derek Hale?” He looks up and there’s suddenly a large black man in a tailored navy suit holding his hand out. Derek doesn’t know if he’s asking for a handshake or the Declaration, so he keeps his hands where they are. The man takes a seat beside him. “I’m Agent Deaton. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble the past few days.”

Derek thinks he’s supposed to say he’s sorry, but he’s not, so he doesn’t.

“In your hands is one of the most important pieces of this country’s history,” Deaton continues, looking a little longingly at the tube. “We’re very willing to do whatever it takes to get it back. Name your price.”

This startles Derek in a way it probably shouldn’t. _Of course_ that’s what they think this is. He had the audacity to steal from the United States. He’s nothing but a terrorist to them.

He shoves the tube at Deaton so fast the man almost doesn’t catch it. “The Declaration of Independence isn’t a bargaining chip,” he says severely.

Deaton is probably trained not to show surprise, or maybe he has learned to expect the unexpected. “It’s not,” he agrees, and passes the tube on to one of his colleagues, a strikingly beautiful woman in stilettos so sharp he’s sure she considers them her primary weapon. “Agent Martin, if you’ll please see that this gets returned to the Archives.”

Derek feels defenseless and vulnerable, and he’s never been so relieved in his life.

There’s silence for a long time. Even their quiet breathing seems to echo in the hollow belly of the church.

Finally, Deaton sighs. Says, “Someone has to take the fall, Derek.”

Derek has thought about this moment a lot, but he never pictured his arresting officer sounding so regretful.

“Someone,” he repeats, hesitant with his trust. “Someone other than me?”

Deaton shrugs. “Could be. Thanks for giving back the Declaration, but you really just paid back your debt. Now we have to worry about the interest. Do you follow?”

Derek does, kind of. He forms the words slowly. “You want the treasure.”

“Me personally? No.” Deaton smiles, a wide open thing with plenty of teeth. “And I don’t want the glory either. I caught the man who pulled off the heist of the century, I’ll have more than my fair share of attention.”

Deaton isn’t a half-bad guy, Derek thinks. “Am I allowed to have conditions?”

“Is the man who committed a federal offense allowed to have conditions?” Deaton pretends to think about it. “I’ll consider them.”

“Stiles gets off.” It’s out before the thought even fully finishes forming. “Dr. Stilinski gets out of this without even a stray mark on his record. Say he was kidnapped and held against his will if you have to, but keep him clean.”

Deaton’s mouth is half-quirked like he might break out that grin again. “You want me to allow an accomplice to the theft of the Declaration of Independence to return to his job at the National Archives?” Derek opens his mouth to argue, but Deaton holds up a hand. “Done.”

If Derek has learned anything from this ordeal, it’s to be sparing with his trust. “Just like that?” he asks doubtfully.

“Just like that.” Deaton leans in. “Between you and me, I happen to like Stiles Stilinski. We spoke earlier. Interestingly enough, one of _his_ conditions was your freedom. Unfortunately, he didn’t hold the bargaining chips you do.”

“I don’t have any bargaining chips.”

“The tre—”

“The treasure isn’t mine to bargain with.” Derek feels a headache coming on, and he rubs his forehead. “Didn’t they tell you what we found? There are scrolls from the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Agent. This treasure isn’t some pirate’s chest full of jewels. This is going to make history. The things we found… they belong in a museum somewhere, where no one can harm them or claim them for their own.”

Deaton’s smile twists wryly. “Hopefully these museums have better security than the National Archives.” Derek finds it within himself to huff a laugh, however forced it might be. “So, you have nothing to offer me anymore. But I’m still interested to hear these other conditions.”

Derek rubs his hands together in his lap, staring down at them. His throat feels suddenly tight. When he speaks, his voice has gone rough. “I want the credit for this discovery to go to the Hale family. And Scott McCall.”

“So you want me to tell the truth,” Deaton says. “I think I can do that.”

He nods and gathers his thoughts for a moment. “One last thing,” he finally says.

“Yes?”

Derek looks Deaton fully in the eye for the first time. “I would really, really like to stay out of prison.”

Deaton’s smile twists into something sympathetic and then disappears altogether. “I told you, Derek. Someone has to take the fall.”

Derek isn’t discouraged. “My condition comes with a recommendation.”

He takes it as a good sign when Deaton looks intrigued.

\--

Derek isn’t there when Kate is arrested, but God, he wishes he could have been.

\--

There’s something called a Finder’s fee. All these years of work chasing after buried treasure and yet Derek’s never heard of it.

They offer him ten percent. He settles for one.

One percent of ten billion is still more money than Derek can comprehend.

He’ll never hear the end of it from Scott, but at least the new Ferrari shuts him up for a little while.

\--

He rebuilds the old house from the ground up, with help from Peter.

The house used to smell like apple cinnamon, his uncle tells him. Like Christmas, all year long. Derek buys enough candles to last him a lifetime and lights them every night, a flame for his whole family. It’s ironic, maybe, to honor them with fire, but it feels oddly fitting.

His mother painted the kitchen purple, that forth time. Derek hates purple, and he thinks she probably would have changed it soon after anyway, so he settles for yellow. She used to have an apron that matched. He can’t find one, but once he does, he’ll hang it up by the door and pretend it’s the one he remembers her serving early-morning pancakes in.

The house doesn’t make him feel as sad as he thought it would. It makes him hopeful, like maybe turning the burnt out husk of a house back into a thriving home has healed a few of the wounds.

Maybe, if he can do it to the house, he can do it to himself.

\--

Stiles loves DC. Derek will never leave Beacon Hills.

They make it work.

\--

He gets a letter in the mail, six months after the heist of the century. It’s addressed to him in small, cramped script that his brain scrambles to recognize.

Inside the envelope isn’t a letter at all. It’s a map of the United States. There are small marks, centered mainly on the East Coast. One is in New York, one in Pennsylvania. DC is enclosed in a neat red heart. On the opposite side of the map, Beacon Hills is circled in the same way. 

On the back, there’s more of that script. _From the man who now has everything._

\--

The good part about the one percent is that Derek can afford to visit Stiles whenever he wants. And he wants. Often.

Scott suggests a private jet. Actually, he suggests they stop being stupid and just _move in together_. “But a jet works, too.”

Derek has a key to Stiles’ apartment, and Stiles knows where Derek hides the house’s spare. Stiles likes to say they’re long-distance living together. Scott thinks they’re just trying to make couples on both coasts look bad.

On the last day of Derek’s latest week-long DC escape, he spends most of his time in Stiles’ bed, wrapped up in the heat and sweat and smell of Stiles. Stiles is in that drowsy almost-sleeping place, but Derek is wide awake. He has his nose nudged up behind Stiles’ ear and he’s just breathing, trying to commit it all to memory.

He closes his eyes and thinks about the clean-soap smell of Stiles’ laundry. Thinks about the honey-brown of his eyes. Thinks about the placement of his moles, the dimple of his back, that little sound he makes when Derek touches him just right.

Stiles shifts, drags his leg over Derek’s hip like they could physically be any closer.

“Tell me a bedtime story,” he murmurs in a way that’s probably meant to be ironic but comes out instead as slurred and sleepy and serious.

Derek smiles.

He knows a few of those.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://www.namingtheruins.tumblr.com). I just wrote a National Treasure AU. Obviously, I need some friends.


End file.
